A Walk To Remember
by xyou'rethemusicinmex
Summary: NOT BASED ON MOVIE. It was almost cliche that all of this had started on the crowded dance floor of a night club. Slight Ryella, MAJOR Troyella. Please R&R. :D I do not own HSM- just to make things clear
1. Attraction

Hands roamed shamelessly over my body, pulling and tugging at the clothes that kept me safe

_**Hey everyone, this is my new one-shot. Please R&R**_

_**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL OTHERWISE I WOULD BE A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE RIGHT NOW!!**_

**Chapter 1**

Hands roamed shamelessly over my body, pulling and tugging at the clothes that kept me safe. Silent tears dripped down my face and he gently kissed them away. Now that everything I had ever known had left me, I had lost complete control of my willpower. I willingly gave into the only one who had been there for me the entire time.

But, after we took part in our passionate dance and a vicious orgasm rocked my body, I couldn't help but think about how I had gotten there in the first place. How my oh-so-plain life had been turned upside down and left me scrambling to hold the pieces together.

Looking to my right, I found that he had already fallen asleep, his blonde hair plastered messily across his sweaty forehead. I smiled and curled up to his side with an arm slung across his waist in an attempt to feel the sort of comfort I had been denied for years. He sighed quietly and, almost as if on instinct, turned so he could hold me in his arms. I sighed and buried my face in his chest. Tears started to roll down my face—right on cue—as I thought back to a night in my life two months beforehand.

It was almost cliché that all of this had started on the dance floor of a night club…

**--**

The first time I saw that wild mane of blonde hair, I should have known that nothing good would come out of introducing myself to him. I don't know what possessed me to make my presence known to him in the first place. I've tried to blame it on the alcohol that was quickly starting to take over my system, but I still can't be sure. Maybe it was because I had seen him watching me as he flowed across the dance floor. Or maybe it was because I was truly interested in him, even though I was already involved in a relationship at the time.

Whatever the drive behind it was, I pushed myself away from the bar, but not before quickly drowning the shot of vodka that had been placed in front of me. I weaved my way through the dance floor with my eyes glued on that wild mane of hair. He was quite possibly the tallest person on the dance floor, so it was easy to keep track of where he was. It took awhile, but when I managed to shove my way through the last wall of people separating us, it felt like everything and everyone in the world ceased moving but us.

He didn't stop his dancing, even though I knew that he noticed me from the egotistical smirk that graced his face. The alcohol in my system had already worn my patience dangerously thin, so it only took a few seconds of him ignoring me before I started to get frustrated. I stomped forward and forcefully turned him around to face me, only to be frozen where I stood.

Had I noticed that the proud grin was still on his face, nothing that happened after that moment probably would have ever happened. Unfortunately, my attention was automatically diverted from his smile and locked onto his eyes as if I were in a trance. Those brilliant blue eyes that burned with the intensity of a thousand suns held me transfixed long enough for him to drape his arms around my waist and pull me flush against his well built body.

Once our gaze was severed and I was shoved back into the reality of the situation, I started to struggle against his hold. It was all for naught, as he only ignored my pushes and shoves and pulled me closer to him, moving until his mouth was beside my ear.

"The name's Troy. Got it memorized?" he whispered, and the way his breath ghosted over the nape of my neck sent a violent shiver through my body. "Who're you?"

I wanted to shout at him when he pulled away so he could look me in the eye, but for some reason I all I could muster was a voice that sounded weak to my own ears.

"I'm Gabriella," I muttered and narrowed my eyes. "Why were you watching me? I'm not something you can just stare at, you know?"

He smiled and shrugged, leaning in once again to whisper:

"I like looking at pretty things." A warm blush spread over my face at his words, and I wanted to punch him but I couldn't.

Instead, I just met his stare with one of my own and lost myself in his deep aquamarine eyes again. When I noticed that his face was getting awfully close to my own, it was almost too late. His lips were only centimetres away from my own when I snapped my face to the side and made his lips miss their mark.

"I'm taken," I muttered in answer to the confusion that shined in his eyes after he pulled away.

Almost immediately the confusion was replaced with mischief and he leaned in close again.

"So am I," he whispered and captured my lips before I had the time to argue.

The kiss that followed was one that I had never experienced with Ryan in the entire four years that we had been dating. There was no tenderness behind it, just the want to dominate and the willingness to submit. What was even more surprising to me was that I was the one who was submitting. I didn't fight against Troy's opened mouthed kisses and opened my mouth obligingly when he started to nip playfully at my bottom lip. I swear that an electric shock wave coursed through my body when our tongues entwined and slid against one another hotly, forcing a deep moan from my body that melted into the loud music that was pounding from the club's speakers.

Soon, my arms found their ways around Troy's neck and my fingers were buried in the hair at the base of his neck. His arms were wrapped tightly around my waist, and I could feel one of his hands toying with the hem of my shirt before it deftly slid beneath the thin cloth. The feeling of Troy's bare hands against my bare back made me groan loudly and tilt my face to make the kiss deeper than it already was.

I noticed a moment too late that we were moving and let out a rather undignified yelp as Troy managed to pick me up and set me down on a barstool. The shock wore of quickly enough and soon I had my legs wrapped around his waist to pull him as close to me as I could. I think I would have pulled him into my own body if it were possible. As it was, the feeling of pleasure that coursed through my body when our groins met sent my mind spiralling off into another dimension.

One of Troy's hands rested on the inside of my thigh while the other made its way up the front of my shirt to toy with one of my nipples. I arched desperately into the touch, letting a loud moan slip past my lips when Troy pulled away from my mouth for breath. If I had been in my right mind, I would have pushed Troy away right then and there. Unfortunately, if I hadn't have been drunk before Troy started our heated make-out session, I most definitely was wasted out of my mind by the time his lips started to nip and suck at the skin of my neck.

My breathing was heavy in my chest and it felt like I was about to explode from all of the pleasure that Troy was exerting on my body. His slender fingers and magical tongue worked endlessly at my flesh until I was little more than a submissive pile of goo in his arms.

As he rubbed me through the denim of my jeans, Troy's lips worked up the side of my neck and found a rather sensitive spot of skin that was just beneath my ear. I screamed and my eyes flew open in surprise, only to close again as his hand on my crotch moved and made me moan.

"You're beautiful, Brie," he whispered hotly into my ear.

"Don't call me that," I muttered through clenched teeth and a badly suppressed moan. "It's embarrassing." He laughed and licked the shell of my ear playfully.

"Then Brie it is."

I tried my hardest to glare at him, really I did, but it must have been weak because Troy only laughed and kissed me tenderly on the lips.

That tender kiss is what it took to finally send me crashing back into the reality of the situation at hand. There I was…in a crowded night club with sensual music playing in the background, making out with Troy. But that wasn't the hardest part of me to swallow. I had _willingly_ surrendered myself to Troy—another _man—_even though I knew that I had a boyfriend who would be waiting for me when I got home. This was so _wrong_ that there weren't even words to describe how disgusting I felt.

Troy was leaning in for another kiss when I turned my head to the side and put a hand over his lips. There must have been guilt swimming in my eyes when I looked back at him because the confusion in his eyes immediately disappeared, only to be replaced by heart-wrenching tenderness.

"I'm sorry," he whispered as his arms fell away from my waist. "I went too far and now you feel guilty. I'm sorry."

I shook my head. "No, it's my fault. I've never let myself go like that. Usually I have more self-control. It wasn't your fault."

Troy had moved far enough away from me while I talked that there was enough room for me to jump down from the stool. I started to walk away when he reached out and latched a gentle hand around my wrist. When I turned around to shout at him to let go, one look into his eyes made all the words in my throat disappear. He looked so lost…so lonely. Then I knew that he had been lying when he'd said that he had been taken. My heart screamed out for him, but I shoved it aside and forcefully reminded myself that I had Ryan before I acted even more rashly than I already had.

"Let me go, Troy," I said calmly with my eyes set as firmly as I could manage. "I have to go. My boyfriend's waiting for me at home."

He frowned and pulled me back to him, grabbing a pen from one of the tables around us as he did. I cocked my head to the side in confusion when he jotted something I couldn't see down on my hand, but then frowned when I saw that it was a phone number.

"Troy, I…"

My words were cut off when he placed another tender kiss to my lips.

"It doesn't mean anything," he muttered. "I don't really have any friends around here and I like you, so yeah… Just call me sometime so we can hang out or something." _Please_, his eyes finished silently.

Still frowning, I glanced between my hand and Troy's half-frowning, half-smiling face before I nodded. I really had no intention of calling him for anything, but I couldn't leave him looking so dejected like he was. And the smile that lit up his face with my affirmative response was enough to light up the entire room and send an unwanted shiver rippling down my spine.

"I'll see you," I said and waved.

He nodded, and I turned my back on him so I could leave the bar. I don't think I have ever driven as fast as I did that night in my entire life. All I wanted was to get home and away from that bar as quickly as possible before I lost all control. It was harder than I thought, seeing that I smelled Troy's cologne on me the entire drive.

Ryan was asleep on the couch when I finally made it home. I smiled tenderly at his sleeping face before running to the bathroom and taking a shower to rid myself of any traces of Troy. Although the shower made the scents disappear, the feelings stayed behind. As I stood under the downpour of water, I could still feel the lines his fingers had traced into my back and stomach and the designs his tongue had painted on my neck. For a moment I wondered what it would be like if I let him take me in a shower, but I quickly shook my head to rid it of such an awful thought. That would never happen. I wouldn't let it because it would hurt Ryan too much.

I could still see Troy's phone number on my hand when I finally left the bathroom. I don't know what possessed me to do it, but I grabbed a Post-It note from the stack in the kitchen on my way through and quickly jotted the number down. I stared blankly at the numbers for a couple of minutes after I wrote them before ripped the paper from the stack with a growl and stuck it in my pocket.

By the time I made it back into the living room, Ryan was beginning to rouse out of his sleep. I smiled at him sweetly when he waved and pushed himself up from the couch.

"You're home later than usual," he muttered sleepily, rubbing at his eyes. It made him look like a child.

My breath stuck in my throat for a moment as I thought of the right thing to say. I knew that I couldn't tell him what had actually happened, so I settled on an easy lie.

"Traffic was heavy on the highway. I think there may have been an accident or something, but I dunno."

He shrugged and ran a hand back through his shaggy platinum blonde hair. But it was nothing compared to Troy's

"I wish you would have called. My back's killing me from falling asleep on the couch."

I smiled sheepishly and went to his side so I could wrap an arm around his neck.

"Yeah, I know I should have. Sorry."

He shrugged again and willingly let me lead his to the bedroom. Once there, we each settled down into our own sides of the bed and curled beneath the blankets without another word shared. It only took a couple of minutes for Ryan's breath to even out in sleep, and I let loose a heavy sigh, rolling over to him, wrapping my arms around his waist.

What a wonderful night for my ordinary, practically scripted life to be turned upside down. I would be the very first to admit that my life was about as boring as it could get. That was the reason for my visits to the clubs in the first place. It gave me a chance to break away from the plainness of my life and be the person I hadn't had the chance to show since high school. I never would have thought in a thousand lives that I would have met someone like Troy during one of my nightly excursions.

'_Troy.'_ A weak sigh slipped past my lips as the blonde's name slipped through my mind.

Suddenly, thoughts of what it would feel like to be held by someone as I was holding Ryan drifted through my mind. I scowled fiercely to myself and tried to hold the thoughts at bay, but something deep within my mind wouldn't let me. Soon I wasn't only wondering what it would be like to be held by someone, but what it would like to be held by _Troy_.

I growled quietly and pulled myself away from Ryan. Casting a sad glance back at his sleeping form, I frowned and slipped out of bed as carefully as I could. With seemingly never-ending thoughts of Troy floating through my mind, I had a feeling that it was going to be a long night.

_**I have split the one-shot up into four parts, so that it is easier to read. I hope you like my story; I thought that I might go for a different approach instead of a really fluffy Troyella.**_

_**Kitty x**_


	2. Submission

Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Rain fell in a heavy sheet just beyond the window of the café on the corner. I sat in a booth by the window and stared blankly at the falling droplets, cocking my head to the side slightly as a rather large drop hit a puddle and seemed to make the water explode.

It had been raining for days now. Days and days of nothing but grey and gloom had turned me into a depressed woman, especially since there hadn't been a sign of sunlight since the night I had had my encounter with Troy at the night club. There was also the fact that Ryan had gone to LA for the weekend for some art convention or another, so I was left alone to fend for myself in our oversized house.

In an attempt to have some company, I had called Troy and asked to meet him at the café, if only so I could prove to myself that I didn't have the slightest twinge of want for him. For the past three nights I had had dreams of his hands roaming shamelessly over my nude body and of his lips doing things that made me scream out in pleasure. I _had _to prove to myself that my dreams were wrong. I had to prove that I didn't want to feel his hands on my bare skin again and I didn't want to feel his lips against mine in an intense kiss. I had to prove that I didn't want _him_.

The soothing sound of bells ringing as someone entered the café jarred me out of my thoughts, and I turned my attention to the door. As luck would have it, it was Troy. He had his back turned to me while he dropped his umbrella into the rack beside the door, but the smile that graced his face when he turned around could have made the gods sing. Even from across the café, I could see just how brilliant his eyes were. They had been dulled the night we had met because of the darkness of the club, but now in the bright artificial light of the café they were the untainted colour of the ocean.

I didn't realize that he was sitting down across from me until he laid his hand gently on mine. I blinked twice and shook my head before I glanced at him. I couldn't help but frown when I saw the look on his face. His eyes were studying me carefully, as if they wanted to engrain all of my features into his memory so he would never forget my face. There was a look of longing on his face, but it was dulled by the pure happiness that shined in his smile.

"Hey, Brie!" he finally said, breaking the thin ice that surrounded us. "How have you been?"

I shrugged and took a long drink from the latte that was sitting in front of me.

"I've seen better days. And you?"

He sighed. "I hate the rain. It makes me feel like shit, and then I get all mopy and stuff. It sucks."

I laughed. I should have known that a person such as him, with a personality like fire, would hate rainy days.

"I forgot the check the forecast before I called you," I muttered. "Sorry."

He shrugged and chuckled, his eyes boring intensely into mine.

"Doesn't matter." He sighed sadly. "I actually wasn't expecting you to call, so I almost died when you did. Even if it was a hurricane out there, I still would have come to meet you."

Something in my head made me want to jump on him right then. Ryan had never been so blunt about his emotions in an indirect way as Troy was. He was a walking, talking advertisement for self-expression and freedom. I had noticed while watching him at the club that he didn't care what other people thought about him, but I never would have expected him to be so honest.

I coughed uncomfortably.

"Yeah, well…" I sighed and gulped. I wasn't sure about whether I should be truthful with him or just come up with a quick little white lie. I figured a mixture of the two was safer.

"My boyfriends's out for the weekend, and I didn't feel like staying home today so I just wanted to call you and see if you wanted to hang out or something."

He laughed and tapped my foot gently with his toe. "Yeah, right," he said with a playful wink. "You just wanted to see me again, didn't you?"

"Lemme tell ya," I said with a roll of my eyes. "I just couldn't stand to go another day without feeling your hands and lips on me again."

Silence fell for a moment afterwards, and I bit my lip while waiting for his reaction. Was he able to see through the joke? Or would he fall for it and let my life go on without messing it up anymore than he already had? His laugh was enough of an answer, and I sighed in relief. Maybe my life was going to go on being plain after all.

"You're strange," Troy said once he got control over his laughter. "You're all cold and heartless one minute, and then a comedian the next. Well, a comedian or a willing puddle of goo." He winked at me and rested his chin on his propped fist. "I wonder how many other sides there are to your personality that you refuse to show. I also wonder why you keep hiding. I mean, you're what? Nineteen …eighteen?"

"I'm twenty," I muttered.

Silence fell over our table once again. I was surprised that I had managed to make Troy speechless. In the short time I had known him; I never thought that anything could make him shut up.

"And how old are you?" I muttered, half in an attempt to break the silence and half in pure curiosity.

He shrugged. "Twenty-one."

"Nice." I don't know why I said it, but it was the first thing that had come to mind. Well, they did always say that people sometimes said dumb things when they were put under pressure.

"Nice?" he muttered, laughing quietly. "Not only are you a cold, submissive, comedian, but you're also the king of weird responses."

"I'm not a cold, submissive, comedian!" I growled with a glare. "The person you met at the club isn't me. I don't know what came over me, but don't expect it to happen again."

He laughed and put his hands in front of him defensively.

"Hey, hey! Take it easy. I never said that it was going to happen again, so chill."

A small groan slipped from my lips as I dropped my head into my hands. Gods dammit! It was a good thing that Troy wasn't very good at reading through the lines, or else I would have been in big trouble by then.

"Hey! The rain's clearing up a bit!" Troy exclaimed.

Sure enough, when I looked out the window it was to see the sun peeking through the clouds shyly. In the span of a couple of seconds, the rain went from heavy to a sprinkle and then faded away to nothing.

"Wanna go for a walk?"

I furrowed my brow and looked at Troy with my head cocked to the side. He was already sliding out of his side of the booth with an expectant smile on his face.

"Troy…"

He frowned. "What? I don't like sitting for too long. Come on! The sun's out now. I bet we'll be able to find a rainbow or something if we go to the park."

Sighing, I resigned to my fate and slid out of the booth after leaving a five on the table to pay for my latte and a tip. Troy was waiting for me outside, bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet impatiently.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're like a child?" I muttered.

He pouted, but quickly changed it into a bright smile as he started to walk backwards. "Blame my best friend. He's the one that turned me into this monster."

"Best friend?" I frowned and furrowed my brow as I started to follow him. "I thought you said that you didn't know anyone around here."

He frowned, and the look of sadness that crossed his face just before he turned his back on me pulled at my heart. "That's because I don't. I moved here for a job and had to leave everyone behind. Chad was going to come with me, but his girlfriend had too good of a job to give it up. Chad was still going to come with me, but I knew that he would miss Taylor too much so I told him to stay behind."

"Do you wish you had told him to come anyway?"

He stopped walking so quickly that I walked past him. When I turned around to look at him, he had a thoughtful expression on his face and a distant look in his eyes. After an eternity he finally sighed and shook his head.

"No, I don't wish that I'd told him to come. That would have been selfish. Well, I know that I _am_ selfish, but that would have been bad, even for me. I couldn't bear to tear Chad away from Taylor, even though it was for my own happiness. That would just make me a shitty friend."

"Yeah."

"Yeah, wha…—"

"You know?" I said, cutting him off. "You're a much more complex and mysterious person than I gave you credit for."

A frown crossed Troy's face and he furrowed his brow. "Thanks…I guess."

I laughed. "No problem."

We walked in silence for a few minutes. It was so comfortable that I couldn't help but feel at peace, and if not at peace, then at least calm. And I knew that it was Troy that made me feel that way. Somehow he had the magic to calm my frayed nerves and make me shed my mask, if only for a little bit. It was dangerous. Gods, was it _dangerous_. Because I knew that if I let him get too close to me, I wouldn't have the strength to push him away if he tried to pull anything again.

"Hey. Where are we, Brie?"

Troy's voice pulled me out of my thoughts, something I noticed had happened too often today, and took a moment to look around us. I groaned when I realized where we were. We were on my street, just two houses down from the house I shared with Ryan.

"Shit…" I whispered under my breath.

"What? We lost or something?"

I bit my lip and shook my head. I knew that it wouldn't be a good idea to be truthful, but I had already lied to Troy once that day. Usually that wasn't a problem, but for some reason I just couldn't bring myself to lie to him again.

"No, were not lost. I wasn't paying attention and my feet led us to my house."

A bright smile lit up his face, and I couldn't help but groan mentally. Wonderful. Just wonderful.

"Ooh, Brie's house."

I snorted and started to walk again. "Yeah. And have I mentioned yet that you act like a child?"

He nodded happily.

"Sure have," he said as he followed me up the steps of my front porch.

I laughed and quickly unlocked the door. A potent mixture of excitement and anxiety fell into the pit of my stomach as I pushed the door open, the hinges squeaking just a little bit louder than they usually did. There was no worry about having to introduce Troy to Ryan because he was gone, but him not being home was also the cause of my worry. Who knew what could happen in his absence if I wasn't able to get a hold of myself? Hopefully nothing, but one could never know.

"You okay, Gabriella?" Troy muttered as he walked into the house behind me.

I blinked back into reality and shook my head. "Yeah, I'm fine," I said and pulled off my jacket so I could hang it on the hook beside the door.

Troy followed suit with a frown on his face. "Well, if you're fine, then why did you shake your head? Something's bothering you."

I shrugged and kicked off my shoes. "So what? It doesn't matter."

I left Troy in the foyer as I went into the kitchen to grab a glass of water. The cold liquid felt good running down my throat and soothed my nerves a little bit. Until a warm pair of arms were wrapped tightly around my middle, that is. Then my anxiety came flooding back and I froze.

Troy leaned down so his chin was resting on my shoulder and put his mouth close to my ear.

"It _does_ matter, Gabriella," he whispered and nipped at the shell of my ear.

"Troy…," I breathed, letting the empty glass fall into the sink.

He gently turned me around in his arms and locked his eyes onto mine. "If something's bothering you, I don't want you to feel like you can't tell me," he whispered. "Your feelings matter to me, Gabriella. _You_ matter to me."

I blinked and fought against his hold on me, but he only tightened his arms around my waist. I sighed and looked up at him with pleading eyes.

"We can't do this," I whispered. "I can't do it to Ryan. It'll hurt him too much."

He shook his head. "It's too late, and you know it," he muttered before he dipped his face down and caught my lips with his own.

My arms were around his neck in seconds, clinging to him as if he was a life line and I would drown if he left me. His lips worked expertly against my own, making my knees weak and my body tremble. When he nipped at my bottom lip, I opened my mouth without a fight and let his tongue slip inside. Our tongues twined together and that same electric shock that had coursed through my body at the club followed the sensation, making me moan.

Before I knew it, my tank top was thrown off and my bra was unhooked. I was lying on my back on the cold marble kitchen floor. Troy's lips and teeth worked at my throat, nipping and sucking in all the right places to make me squirm in his arms. When his mouth moved down to take in one of my nipples, I shouted out loud at the new feeling. Ryan and I never went this far, we've never had sex even though we've been together for 4 years. We were goingt o be pure until we got married; maybe that was why my life was so boring and dull. My eyes snapped open and I looked down, only to see that Troy had a rather satisfied smile on his face as he moved to work on my other nipple.

Every new place he touched made a shiver of anticipation and lust ripple through my entire body. And it wasn't one of those quick shivers that are easy to ride out. It was one of those shivers that comes straight from your toes and makes you close your eyes so you don't cry out. I never would have imagined that having someone touch me in the places Troy was could feel so impossibly good. It was the most amazing feeling I had ever experienced…and it was addicting.

Troy had managed to make a line with his mouth down to the waistline of my pants before he returned to my mouth with another breathtaking kiss. While this mouth worked against my own, his hands went to work with my jeans. In a flash, my jeans and panties were gone and I was exposed to Troy in my entirety.

I closed my eyes in embarrassment as Troy took in the sight of my body splayed out before him. No one had ever looked at me like that before, as if I were the most amazing thing they had ever seen. After a while, the embarrassment became too much to handle and I cracked an eye to see that Troy was still staring at me.

"Troy…," I whined.

He snapped out of his trace with a small jump before he kissed me deeply.

"You're beautiful, you know?" he whispered against my lips as he pulled away.

I groaned in response, and he began retracing his steps back down to my waist. After he dipped his tongue into my belly button piercing, I propped myself up onto trembling elbows so I could watch the rest of his descent.

When he noticed that I was watching, he smiled at me and changed his pace to one that was agonizingly slow. Completely ignoring my throbbing core, he started to nip and suck at the inside of my thigh. One particularly hard bite made me cry out, and I knew that it was going to leave a mark but at the moment I didn't care. All that mattered was that Troy does _something_ to ease the painful throbbing between my legs.

"A-Troy…please…" I thrusted my hips up impatiently to let him know what I wanted.

A mischievous smile graced Troy's lips for only a moment, but then that amazing mouth of his was parting the lips of my core and all thought ceased to exist. I cried out and a hand immediately buried itself in his hair. I would have collapsed if it wasn't for the strong hand in the centre of my back that gave me support.

Troy's expert mouth worked endlessly as he licked, sucked, and swallowed my way into a land of pleasure I never would have thought possible. When I started to thrust towards his mouth, he removed the hand on my back to help hold my hips steady and I fell backwards onto the cold floor.

"Gods…" I moaned. "Oh, gods…please… Don't stop. I'm so close. Troy, please. Don't stop."

He thrust his tongue deep into my core and the reverberations sent wave after wave of pleasure surging through my body. My toes were curled and the fingers in Troy's hair tightened impulsively. The fingernails of my other hand dug helplessly into the marble floor as I tried to fight against the Troy's tight hold on my hips.

Finally, one last sharp suck sent me spiralling over the edge and I screamed out as white stars erupted across my vision. Wave after wave of pleasure coursed through my body and left me a shivering, exhausted mess on the floor.

A few seconds passed before Troy captured my mouth in a kiss, and I could taste something different about his mouth. It wouldn't be until later that I would realize that it was myself, but at the moment all I cared about were the after effects of my orgasm that were still surging through my body.

The moment crashing down around my ears. I gasped and my eyes flew open as I pulled away from the kiss. Troy had loosened his grip on me in his shock and the slack let me slip away from him. By the time he came back into reality, I was already across the kitchen and staring at him with wide and what must have been guilty eyes.

"Gabriella…," he whispered his eyes soft as he started to move toward me.

I moved further away from him, shaking my head so fast that I could have given myself whiplash.

"Please don't, Troy. Please." I looked at him pleadingly. "I just want to be friends. It can't go any further than that. I told you, I can't hurt Ryan. Please, just go."

His eyes were sad, but he nodded and pushed himself up from the floor. "I don't know if I can just be friends, Gabriella," he whispered as he walked away. "As nice as it would be, I've learned over the years that it's never good to be in love with a friend."

And then he was gone. I stared with wide eyes at the spot where he had been sitting, then to the place where he had given me a lick-out. It looked so dirty and defiled, and I knew for sure that Ryan would be able to see what had happened there if I didn't do something soon.

Ignoring my pants, I opened the door beneath the sink and pulled out a bottle of Mr. Muscle and the small plastic trash can we kept for cleaning the floor. I dumped a capful of the cleaner into the bucket and filled the bucket with water. Then, I collapsed onto the floor and started to scrub with the nearest wash cloth I could find. I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed.

Sometime during my scrubbing, tears started to pour down my face and I was shaking so badly that I collapsed onto the tile. I didn't bother to pick myself up. I just laid there and cried. I hadn't cried in years and the feeling was extremely foreign to me. I don't know what I was crying about, though. Was I crying for Ryan? Or was it for Troy? It couldn't have possibly been for me, since I was the one who had gotten myself into the mess in the first place.

When I finally found the strength to pick myself up from the floor, I dumped the bucket of water into the sink and replaced everything where it should be. I grabbed my jeans and pants from the floor and ran up to the bathroom as quickly as I could to take a shower. Troy was all over me…he was everywhere. I could feel him touching me and smell his cologne. I could taste his tongue in my mouth.

Tears started to fall once again as I stood under the warm spray of water. Nothing like this was supposed to happen! This wasn't me. I didn't cheat and I didn't lie. I was with Ryan… I couldn't cheat. Ever since we had started dating, it had been Ryan's dream to get married. Who was I to deny him that after four years? What kind of person would I be if I just left him behind to rot while I ran off with Troy?

'_Troy…'_ I groaned and pressed my forehead against the side of the shower. He was so amazing because he was so different than Ryan. His touches were intoxicating and his kisses were even worse. He had looked at my body as if it were a beautiful sacred relic, as if he worshipped me. And…and…

"…_As nice as it would be, I've learned over the years that it's never good to be in love with a friend."_

The words had been whispered, but I managed to pick up on them just as the door was closing behind Troy. He said that he was in love with me. How was that even possible? We had only seen each other twice. Albeit we had been with each other sexually on both occasions, but that wasn't grounds enough for someone to fall in love. We barely even knew each other, so how could he say something like that? That he loved me…

'_And why was it so painful to see him leave? Why was it harder to see him leave than it was when Ryan went to New York for two weeks last month? Why did it feel like my heart shattered? Why? Why? _Why_?'_

I turned around and let my back slide down the wall until I was sitting in the bathtub. The water ran over my body and down my face, dripping into my eyes, but I didn't care. My thoughts were so convoluted and my life was so fucked up that I didn't think that I would be able to care about anything for a while.

It was a good thing that Ryan wasn't going to be coming home. Who knew what he would have thought when he found me sleeping in the shower with tearstains on my face. And then there was _him_ again, his name leaving my mouth in little more than a whisper.

"Troy…"

_**Here's the second chapter. Enjoy & R&R.**_

_**Kitty x**_


	3. Confusion

Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Saturday and Sunday were quite possibly the longest days of my entire life. I was home alone with nothing to do and no one to hang out with. Well…I knew someone I could spend time with, but every time I found myself gravitating towards the phone, I forced myself to find _something_ to distract myself.

Ryan came home late Sunday night. I was sitting on the couch reading a book with the television playing quietly for background noise when I heard the front door creak open quietly. When I looked up, I saw Ryan pulling his suitcase through the front door with a large smile on his face. I returned the smile and jumped up from my seat on the couch to help him with his bags.

"Welcome home!" I muttered and kissed his cheek. I felt like I was betraying Troy if I kissed him properly on the lips.

He laughed and handed me his carry-on bag. "It's good to be back. LA is so busy compared to this place. It almost drove me crazy."

I laughed and he smiled. Without thinking, I dipped my head and captured his lips with my own. We each dropped the bags in our hands as we stumbled backwards. I let out a gasp when my back connected with the wall, but his arms soon wound around my waist and held me close to him. His tender kisses drove me mad. They were so pure and innocent. So unlike _his_.

With the thought of Troy drifting through my head, I suddenly pulled away from Ryan and took a step back, coughing awkwardly. He sighed and opened his eyes quietly, looking quite ravished despite how delicate our kisses had been.

"You miss me much?" he said jokingly, his blue eyes sparkling happily.

I smiled sheepishly and shrugged, but inside I was wondering why I felt like I had after my times with Troy. Why did I feel like I had just been cheating? I wasn't in a relationship with Troy. I was with _Ryan_! So why did I feel so dirty after just kissing my boyfriend?

'_Because you care about him…Maybe you even lo…'_ I shut the little voice in my head out before they could get any further, just like all the other thoughts my mind had sent my way when it came to the topic of Troy. I didn't care about him. I didn't even _know_ him, and it was impossible to care about someone you barely even knew… Wasn't it?

Grumbling quietly under my breath, I grabbed the bags I had dropped onto the floor and headed upstairs to our bedroom, Ryan following closely behind. We dropped his things precariously on the floor in front of his dresser and changed into our pyjamas in an echoing silence.

When Ryan wrapped his arms around me from behind and started to kiss my neck, his hands wandering beneath my shirt and against my skin, I gently pushed him away and offered an apologetic smile.

"You must be tired from your flight," I muttered.

He frowned, and I could feel his eyes watching me as I crossed the room and crawled into bed. I was afraid that he wasn't going to follow, but after a couple of minutes I heard his feet patter across the floor and felt the bed sink beside me.

"G'night, Gabriella," Ryan whispered, kissing me gently on the cheek.

I sighed. "It's good to have you home again."

He laughed quietly and curled up to my side, and I wrapped an arm around his waist. Almost immediately, thoughts of Troy bombarded my mind and made me clench my eyes closed in aggravation. I wanted to pull away from Ryan but I knew that it would only make him even more confused than he already was. Instead, I dug into my mind and pulled out old thoughts and memories of Ryan. It helped to mute the Troy thoughts, even though they were still mostly predominant in my mind.

I didn't care. My handsome boyfriend was home and I was holding him in my arms. Everything else on the outside world could wait.

**--**

Wednesday came around and it found me sitting in the café on the corner (again), waiting for a certain blonde to show up (again) who was late (again). Ryan had gone out to the bar with his mates and I seized the opportunity to shut the voices in my head up without a second thought. My conscience kept telling me that I cared for Troy—that I _really_ cared for him—when I knew that it was impossible to do so. I knew that, once I saw him today, all of my thoughts would stop because my conscience would realize that it had been wrong all along. I did _not_ care about Troy. At all. Period.

The bells on the door jingled and I didn't even have to look up to know that it was Troy who had entered. His cheerful voice filled the small café as he greeted the elderly woman behind the counter by first name. When the legs of the chair across from me scrapped against the faux marble floor, I told myself not to look up, but myself didn't want to listen. My eyes lifted and I had to hold in a gasp when my eyes were met with smouldering hues of blue.

Every time I saw him, Troy looked different. Whether it was a change in his wardrobe or just a change in attitude, he most definitely wasn't the type to pick something and stick with it. I knew that the moment I had laid my eyes on him at the club, yet he never ceased to amaze me.

Today it had been a change in both wardrobe and attitude. Instead of looking neat and orderly like he usually did (which completely clashed with his personality, I thought), he was wearing a pair of artfully torn jeans and a plain black T-shirt with trainers. His usually emotional face seemed to be going into emotional overload as his eyes burned deeply into my own. The heat that radiated from his gaze made me sweat.

"Can I get you something to drink, Troy?"

The sound of the elderly old lady's voice pulled me and Troy out of our staring contest, and I was surprised to see that she was standing beside our table with a small notebook in her hands.

Troy smiled brightly and checked the list of drinks on oversized chalkboard over the woman's shoulder before he shrugged. "I don't think I'll take anything today, Cathy. Thank you, though."

The woman smiled brightly and nodded before she turned and walked away. Troy watched her retreating form for a couple of seconds before he turned his attention back onto me with a frown.

"Hey Gabriella. How are you doing?" he asked a tense and obviously fake smile on his face. He was already using all of his willpower to stay decent in public. This wasn't good.

I sighed. "I'm fine. How about you?"

He shrugged. "I've been better."

I sighed again and ran a hand back through my long curly hair. Wonderful. This conversation was getting nowhere, and the only way to get Troy to talk would be to take him somewhere private. Or, at least, somewhere more private than a tiny café.

I grabbed my strawberry smoothie from the table and stood up, smiling sadly when Troy looked at me in confusion. "Walk with me?"

He furrowed his brow and frowned, but followed nonetheless. We left the café and wandered through the streets of town in silence. I led the way into the park and found an isolated grove of trees where we could sit on the ground and talk in private. Even if we raised our voices, there was a good chance that no one would hear us.

I sat down on the soft grass in silence and took a sip from my smoothie, watching Troy expectantly. After a moment or two, he sighed and plopped down onto the ground beside me.

"You wanted something?" he muttered.

A sharp pain shot through me at the tone of his words. They were sharp and clipped…almost bitter. I never thought I would hear the angry sound come from Troy's mouth, but there it was. And it was directed at me.

I shook my head. "No. I just wanted to see you, 's all."

He snorted quietly and rolled his eyes. "So _now_ you just want to see me." He laughed again. "I was wrong about you. You're not funny at all. You're just a heartless bitch who likes to mess with other people's heads."

I frowned and narrowed by eyes at him, angered by his harsh words. "You're not being fair, Troy."

"_I'm_ not being fair? You're the one who has a boyfriend who insists that he loves, yet still comes running to me whenever he goes out of town and he starts feeling a little lonely." He was yelling by the time he got toward the end. "I'm not a whore, Gabriella!"

"Not a whore?" I laughed. "Who's the one that started feeling me up when all I wanted to do was bitch at you? Huh? Who's the one who was ready to fuck me right there on the bar? Who's the one who…—"

"That was before!" he shouted, interrupting me. "That was before I knew who you were…before I fell in _love_ with you, Gabriella. So maybe you're right and I am a whore, but just know that the only person I've laid a hand on over the past two weeks has been you."

"You can't be in love with me!" I yelled. "You don't know anything about me. I could be a crazed axe murder for all that you know."

His eyes burned into mine. "And are you a crazed axe murder?"

I blinked and looked away from him, rubbing my head sheepishly. "Well, no but…—"

"Then what's the problem?" He sighed. "I _do_ know you. You're just like me when I was twenty. All self-righteous…thinking you have everything in the world when you really have nothing. You're a brooder…a thinker…a loner. You don't think that anyone can possibly understand you because you can't even understand yourself. You're afraid to let new people into your life because you don't want to get hurt…"

My eyes widened and I felt my heart stop as Troy voiced all of my insecurities. He was wrong. He _had _to be wrong. Not even Ryan knew that I thought those kinds of things, and he knew practically everything about me. But it didn't end there. He went on and on until I quieted him by jumping on him and pinning him to the ground.

"You don't know anything!" I spat.

He smirked and grabbed onto my shoulders. With one harsh roll, he managed to change our positions. The same cocky smirk hovered dangerously low over my face.

"But I _do_ know, and you hate it. Don't you? You hate that, alas, there is someone out there who gets and understands you. There's someone out there who can appreciate your silent moments _and_ your wild moments." He bent down so his lips were just a breath away from mine. "And you're _terrified_, aren't you?"

"St-stop," I pleaded, squirming against Troy's hold, but he had my arms pinned helplessly beside my head. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes and started to fall before I could muster the strength to hold them back. "Please. I can't do it to Ryan. I just _can't_! I know that he deserves better than me…so much better than me…"

"If you know that he deserves better than you, then why don't you leave him? Leave him before you hurt him too much and he ends up leaving you."

"I don't want to be alone!" I shouted, then quickly quieted my voice to a whisper as tears started to drip from my eyes. "I wouldn't be able to take it if I was alone."

"You're not alone, Gabriella. I'm here for you. I always will be," he whispered and cupped the side of my face in his hand.

I impulsively nuzzled into his hand, keeping my eyes locked on his. "Please."

Troy sighed, and just when I thought he was going to say something, captured my mouth in a searing kiss. Practically everything in my being screamed for me to give into him, to just wrap my arms around his neck, open my mouth, and let him have his way with me.

Then there was the other .01 percent of my being that screamed to shove him away. It was something I like to call a conscience. I don't know what took it so long to finally show up, but when it did I could feel it like a harsh kick to my gut.

I shoved Troy away from me with a gasp, hard enough to make him fall to the side in shock. He sputtered rather indignantly as he fell onto his ass, and looked at me with complete surprise written across his face. He as confused about everything as I was, that was for certain.

"Bri-Gabriella?"

I sighed, rubbing at my eyes and the tears forming in them in irritation. "I-I can't, Troy. I just can't."

He blinked and furrowed his brow in confusion. Tears formed in his forever deep eyes when he reached for me and I flinched away. "Gabriella. _Please_."

I wanted to go to him. God, how I wanted to go to him and wrap my arms around him, whispering that it was okay and we could stay together forever. But I knew that we were never meant to be and I couldn't bring myself to make those false promises.

"Troy, please. You just don't understand."

His eyes widened briefly in shock, but then narrowed slightly in anger. "Because I don't understand anything, right?"

"Troy…" I reached out to put a hand on his arm but he shoved it away.

"Stop, Gabriella!" he shouted, gripping his head in his hands. "Just _stop_, okay?"

I obeyed immediately. My entire body seemed to freeze up while I just sat and stared at him, waiting patiently for what he was going to say to me next.

After a few minutes Troy leaned forward silently and placed a soft kiss on my cheek before he stood. I watched his every move, etching his face and body into my mind as I did. He brushed the dirt from the back of his jeans and then turned to offer me a hand, which I took gratefully. When I was on my feet, Troy pulled me to him and hugged me tightly. He tried to kiss me when he pulled away, but I turned my face to the side.

"Please don't make this harder for me than it already is," I whispered.

He sighed, but slowly let me go. We stood in the clearing and stared deep into each others eyes for what felt like an eternity before Troy finally sighed and blinked, breaking the eye contact.

"I'll see you around," he said and turned away with a wave.

"Yeah…" I muttered and watched him walk away from me, tears that were unknown to me dripping from my eyes.

Though I had what I had thought I had wanted all along, there was now a deep hole in the centre of my chest and I knew what it was from. I couldn't help but wonder: _'Why didn't you just tell him?'_

Sighing, I turned around and walked out of the grove of trees opposite of where Troy had exited, lost in my thoughts. Troy was gone, yes, but I had a feeling that my life was far from returning to normal.

_**Chapter 3… remember R&R**_

_**Kitty x**_


	4. Exhaustion

Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

I could have never been more right in my entire life. Instead of going back to normal, my life started to spiral out of control. I spent almost every night at the clubs, drinking until I couldn't walk straight and everything started to blur together. I woke up every morning with a killer hangover, but the alcohol gave me the chance to forget just how fucked up my life really was, if only for a little while.

Ryan was worried about my behaviour, which was to be expected. Who wouldn't be worried when their partner tried their damnedest to spend every second of their waking moments drunk? However worried he was about me, though, he never tried to get me to stop. He never fought me when I walked out the door at night, disappearing to some bar downtown, never to be heard from until I stumbled through the door in the morning.

I can't blame him for it, though. If he were the one wasting his life away, I probably would have tried a little harder to get him to stop, but it would be much easier to just ignore the problem from the beginning. If you were able to convince yourself that your life was picture perfect, then your life _was_ picture perfect.

I tried to get in contact with Troy many times, each time for a different reason than the last. Sometimes I called him because I wanted to see him, other times I called him because I wanted a good fuck. Sometimes I called him with the intent to tell him that I had come to realization that I loved him, other times I called him with the intent to yell at him with every ounce of my being for fucking my life up so badly. It never mattered what my reason for calling him was, though, because he didn't pick up.

The day that my life really came crashing down around me, however, was the first day I had been sober in almost a month. I don't know what had possessed me to do it. Maybe it was the because of the selfish fact that I couldn't stand to see Ryan's smiling face anymore. I was so angry and depressed at everything, yet he went on in life with a bright smile on his face. It made me sick.

Or maybe it was because I was beginning to _really _feel guilty for what I had done to him. I had willingly engaged in sexual activities with someone else—a man, at that—even though I knew I was already in a relationship with him. And, overtime, I had fallen in love with this other person, caring for them as much as or more than I had ever cared for Ryan.

Whatever the reason, I knew that it was time for me to come clean because deep down inside I knew that Ryan deserved to know. That and I also knew that he would find out about it on his own if he was given enough time.

As such, I spent the entire day agonizing over what I was going to say to him. Should I be blunt about it, or try and sugar-coat the truth? After a while, I decided that it would be easier if I just came out and told the direct truth because he would leave me either way. And it wasn't going to be a good fight. I had seen Ryan angry once in our entire relationship, and it hadn't been pretty. Thankfully, however, the anger hadn't been directed toward me.

I watched the hands ticking on the clock in the dining room for what felt like days, but in reality was only a couple of hours. When I heard the handle for the front door jiggle quietly, I felt every muscle in my body tense in apprehension. This was it. He was home, and I had made my decision. There was no going back now.

I listened quietly to Ryan as he bustled around in the foyer, probably taking off his shoes and hanging his umbrella on the hook beside the door. I could picture everything perfectly in my mind, and it made me sick.

I had no right to do what I was about to do, to hurt him like I knew I was going to. But didn't have the right to continue hurting him behind his back either, and I knew that it would happen if we stayed together. I knew that, whenever I saw Troy again, I would give myself over to him without argument. Ryan didn't deserve to have to go through something like that.

He was moving out of the foyer now, I could hear him. He paused when he walked into the archway that led into our kitchen, his eyes immediately finding mine. The smile that would have usually lit up his face at the sight of me was absent. I can only guess that he read the bad news in my eyes. Maybe that meant that it would be easier to share it.

"Hey, Sweetie," he said brightly, though I could hear the worry behind his words. "How was your day?"

I shrugged and kept my eyes locked on him, engraving his features into my mind for the millionth time. His green eyes would be sparkling in their usual curiosity, but a small hint of darkness would be lingering just below their surface.

"Gabriella?"

He took a step into the kitchen and the movement pulled me out of my thoughts. I shook my head and stood from the chair I had occupied for most of the day. I watched as tears threatened to spill from my eyes as I moved away from to him.

"What's wrong, Gabriella?" he whispered fearfully. "What happened?"

I sighed and forced myself to stop a couple feet away from him.

"I have something I need to tell you," I finally muttered. His eyes widened in shock as he understood what was going to happen.

I smiled sadly and nodded. "Yes. I have to do this because…" I paused and took a moment to find the right words before I continued. "…because I can't let myself lie to you anymore. I can't keep hurting you."

"You're not hurting me, Gabriella. You're doing fine. I'm doing fine. _We're _doing fine." His eyes still pleaded with me to agree with him.

I shook my head. "No, I'm not fine. I'm…I'm anything but fine, Ry."

"Stop it, Gabriella," he shouted.

"I can't. I can't keep lying to you, Ryan. Don't you understand that? I hate hurting you without you even knowing."

"But you're _not_ hurting me!"

"I _am_!"

He narrowed her eyes. "Gabriella, _please_!"

I froze for a moment, thrust back in time a week and a half before hand. I was sitting on the ground in a clearing in a grove of trees, and Troy was beside me, begging the same thing of me with tears in his eyes.

But then I blinked and I tumbled back into reality. I forced myself to look into Ryan's eyes. Brown met with Emerald green for a moment that seemed to last forever. Then Ryan gasped and jumped backwards, his eyes wide.

"You…" he raised his shaking hand and pointed at me. "You…you…"

The words seemed to elude him, however. Instead of struggling to think of something to say, though, he dropped his hands to his sides and narrowed his eyes. I braced myself for what was to come when I saw the red starting to spread across his face.

_Slap._

I cried out and clutched the side of my face gingerly. I could taste blood from a cut inside my mouth. Ryan's ragged breaths echoed around the kitchen and let me do anything but forget about what was happening.

"How dare you!" he shouted. "How _dare _you do that to me! After everything…everything we've been through…everything I've done for you."

I couldn't bring myself to look at him. Tears spilled from my eyes. I kept my eyes locked a spot on the kitchen floor—the exact spot where Troy had given me an oral—and let my arms hang slack at my side.

"Look at me, dammit!" he shouted.

I did as I was told, if only to keep him from hitting me again. He was angrier than I could ever remember him. Even angrier than he'd been the night a rival had broken into his gallery and destroyed more than half of his paintings. Even angrier than he'd been when he had confronted the rival. He was so angry that he was shaking, and I was almost sure that I could see a reddish glint to his eyes, but it must have only been a trick of the light. That stuff wasn't real.

"Is he handsome?"

I started and blinked wildly, trying to grasp onto what he had just asked. "WH-what?"

He sighed in annoyance and ran his hand through his hair. "Is. He. Handsome?"

I gulped, trying to think of a way out of answering the question. But there wasn't. I had planned to come clean with Ryan. Revealing to him that I had cheated on him.

"W-well…" I started awkwardly, looking at anything but her face. "H-he's very…"

He did not give me time to finish. He sank to the ground.

"R-Ryan…" I moaned and made to move toward him, but froze when he lifted his head.

Tears were pouring down his face, lingering in his deep green eyes. Any anger that had been in his face before was gone and had been replaced by a gut-wrenching amount of pain and despair.

"Get out," he whispered.

I shook my head. "No, Ryan. Please." I reached out to touch his arm, but he jumped away from me quickly.

"Don't touch me!" she shouted. "Get out! Get out and never come back! I never want to see your disgusting face again!"

I narrowed my eyes, letting myself be overcome with anger for the first time since the argument had started. "It's _my_ house, Ryan! You have no right to tell me to get out."

"Then leave for the night. I'll pack my things and be gone in the morning. Don't expect to hear of me again."

I sighed and closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose in exasperation. There was no way that I _wouldn't_ hear of Ryan again. He was a rising star in the world of art and his face was going to be spread across newspapers and television screens. The way I saw it, he was going to have it easy. I was a lousy journalist. The only time he would have to hear of me was when he picked up a paper. He never reads the newspaper.

Giving up on trying making amends with her, I ran a hand back through my hair and headed out of the kitchen. I paused in the archway and let myself have one last look back at his cowering form.

"Ryan, I'm…" I sighed and closed my eyes. "I'm sorry."

I barely heard his respond with a quiet, tear-filled, "Yeah, me too," as I walked into the foyer.

I slipped silently into my shoes and shrugged my jacket onto my shoulders to shield me from the steady fall of rain outside. His quiet sobs echoed throughout the house and made my heart clench terribly.

And then I was outside, walking down the pathway from the front porch, walking down the sidewalk, walking away…

I couldn't hold the tears back any longer. They dripped from my eyes and mingled with the rain that was running down my face. I hadn't bothered to pull my hood up, so my hair was sopping wet and water dripped down my face in rivulets.

'_Why am I such a fuck-up? Why did I have to ruin the one good thing to happen to me in my life? _Why_?'_

I kicked a stone across the wet pavement as I walked and continued to lose myself in my thoughts. I had no where to go, no refuge from the rain that was growing heavier and heavier as I walked. I was alone. For the first time in my life, I was truly alone.

'_No!'_ And suddenly, as if it were the most normal thing, a flash of blonde hair drifted through my mind and I started to run.

I wasn't alone. I had Troy. Of course, I didn't know his address or even what neighbourhood he lived in, but I knew one place I could find out. I quickened my pace as the large brick building came into my field of vision, pushing my legs as fast as they would go.

A handful of eyes blinked onto me when I threw open the door of the library. Most of them returned to whatever they had been doing before seconds after seeing who I was, but some of them continued to linger on me as if they thought I was crazy. I tried my hardest to ignore them as I made my way to the librarians' desk, the best fake smile I could muster shining on my rain soaked face.

The old librarian had to do a double-take when she saw me, but then she smiled and shuffled over to the desk. "What can I do for you, Gabriella?"

"I need help finding someone. Can you help me find an address?"

She nodded and started to walk out from behind the desk. "Of course, I can. We have all the phone books issued for this year…"

"No!" I hissed. I didn't have the time to look in a phone book. Who knew how long it would take to find him then? "Don't you have any way to do it on the computer? I only know a first name, so it'll probably take forever to find them in a book."

The woman eyed me suspiciously for a brief second, but I guess she remembered that she had known me since I was in elementary school and let her better judgment take over. She shuffled back to her station behind the desk and settled into a chair behind the computer, motioning to me to kneel beside her. I did as she asked and watched as she clicked a couple of buttons with the mouse and the white pages website filled the screen.

"What's the name?"

"Troy."

She nodded and typed the name into the search box, along with our zip code. I held my breath and closed my eyes, praying in my mind that something would come up. Troy wasn't a very common name in our area, so I hoped that there wouldn't be too many results.

"Troy Bolton?"

I opened my eyes at the sound of the old woman's voice and stared at the computer screen. There was only one result for our search. "Troy Bolton." It had to be him.

"Yes," I breathed. "Do you have a piece of paper and a pencil?"

She nodded and grabbed a pad of Post-Its and a pencil from the tray beside the computer. I took them gratefully and messily jotted Troy's address down. I ripped the paper from the pad and stuck it into my pocket before handing it and the pencil back to the librarian with the first true smile of the day on my face.

"Thank you very much!" I exclaimed and ran from the library before I could tell my body otherwise.

'_Troy Bolton, huh?'_ I thought as I ran…and ran…and ran…

**--**

It was almost surreal when I finally made it to the gate that blocked me from the walkway up to Troy's house. After running for half an hour, my legs were throbbing and my chest burned painfully. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to run all the way from the library, but the thought of hailing a taxi had completely eluded my mind in my excitement and anger…

Yes, anger. The thirty minutes of running had given me plenty of time to think about what I was going to say to Troy. Needless to say, I was pissed. If it hadn't been for him, I would be home with Ryan right now, probably cuddling on the couch while we watched Wheel of Fortune on TV. If it hadn't been for him, my life would still be normal right now. I would still be _plain_, and that was perfectly alright with me. At least, that's what I liked to tell myself.

Pushing my thoughts aside, I gripped the handle of the gate and shoved it open. It swung forward noiselessly, and it made a mad smile stretch across my face as I stalked up the walkway, marched up the stairs, and was finally face-to-face with Troy's front door.

I didn't hold back.

I pounded on the door so hard that splinters dug into my palms and cut them open until they bled. I screamed so loudly that my voice cracked and my throat ached, my already strained lungs threatening to collapse at any moment. When Troy opened the door, I pounced on him, attacking his chest with my fists as I continued to scream.

"It's your fault! Dammit! I lost everything, and it's your entire fault!"

I fell into a crumpled, sopping wet heap on the floor as my strength left me and tears took over. He was at my side in less than a second, pulling me into his arms. I didn't try to fight him. Even if I had, it would have been futile. I didn't have the strength to win against him. Not anymore.

"Shh," he cooed, running a hand through my hair as I continued to cry. "What did I do? What's my fault?"

"Everything!" I cried. "I lost my boyfriend. I lost my house. I lost _everything_. And it's all because of you. All because…all because… Gods dammit! Because I love you."

Any words that followed were lost to incoherency as I gave myself over to painful sobs that made it feel like my chest was about to split in two. Troy's arms tightened around me and he buried his face in my soaked hair, still running a hand through my brunette curls in even, calming strokes.

Finally, when I calmed down enough to breathe and think properly, I pulled away from Troy. For the first time since we had met, he didn't fight it and let me go peacefully. We stood from the floor at the same time, and I started to pace while he stood and watched me in silence.

I didn't know what to do. Everything I had ever known was gone, and now I was by myself. I couldn't even remember what had possessed me to come to Troy's in the first place, besides my feelings for him and the fact that he had been there for me the entire time. Now my life was so fucked up that I didn't even know where to begin to fix it.

My thoughts were interrupted when a strong pair of arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me down. I yelped and tumbled into Troy's lap as he settled down into the couch. For the first time, I didn't try to fight it, but snuggled into the embrace instead. The sigh that resulted from him was enough to make me smile sadly.

"Tell me what happened," he whispered.

And so I did. I told him about how I had started to get drunk every night at the clubs just so I could forget. I told him about how I hadn't been able to take the guilt and had finally broken down and told Ryan about what I—_we_—had done. I told him about the fight that had ensued. I told him about being hit and shouted at. I told him about being kicked out of the home and left out to rot in the rain. I told him about how I had been so angry that I had gone to the library and looked up his address. I told him about how fast I had run and how my lungs had burned as I pushed myself…

Then I proceeded to tell him how I had come to a realization that day in the clearing of trees after watching him walk away…that I loved both him and Ryan. Now that Ryan was leaving and never coming back, I was free to finally be with him.

The ways that his mouth slackened and his eyes widened would have been comical if the mood hadn't have been so serious. As it was, I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from laughing.

"What did you say?" he whispered.

I smiled and brushed his hair out of his face so I could look him straight in the eye. "I love you."

The smile that spread across his face was nothing like the ones I had seen from him in the past. It was quite possibly the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life, and I couldn't help but return the smile and hope that it was half as wonderful as his.

When he kissed me, I didn't resist. I wrapped my arms around his neck and clung to him for dear life, returning the kiss with as much intensity and passion as I could muster.

Hands dipped under my shirt to skim across perfect skin, slipped beneath the waistline of jeans to grope and play with what was there. I squirmed and writhed, moaned and purred, while Troy continued to kiss me deeply and his fingers slid gently up and down my spine.

Soon after, shirts were pulled away and Troy stood. I gasped and wrapped my legs around his waist to keep myself from falling. He steadied me by linking his hands under my ass to give me more support. We stared into each other's eyes for what felt like an eternity before our lips crashed together once again and Troy started to move.

I was only half surprised when Troy stopped and laid me back on his bed. We moved backwards so we weren't half hanging off the side of the bed. The feeling of my bare breasts pressed against his bare chests made me hiss and cling to Troy desperately. When he pulled away from me, I had only a second to look at him in confusion before he started to fumble with the button on my jeans.

It took what only felt like seconds for him to pull my pants and jeans away from my body and drop them onto the floor, and then I was unfastening his belt buckle and pulling the rest of his clothing away so we could lay together, skin on skin. It was the most amazing feeling in the world. Being held in Troy's arms with nothing separating us, I finally felt like I was whole. It was like something that had been missing from my life for years was finally here.

Troy kissed me again and gave him all I was worth. I felt like he deserved it after everything I had put him through.

I tried my hardest not to show any pain when Troy prepared me, tried even harder not to show the pain when he pressed into me. It didn't hurt because he was rushing things, though. He was going dreadfully slow, and I could only imagine how much of his will power he was using up to not just pound into me like there was no tomorrow. No. It hurt because it was my first time—in this way, at least—and it was a new feeling for me.

After a couple of seconds, though, the pain vanished, and I found myself rocking against Troy, crying out in pleasure when he hit something inside of me that made my vision flash white. I clung to him desperately and cried out again and again as he continued to hit the same spot. The amount of pleasure that was coursing through my body should have been illegal because I didn't see how I was going to be able to survive if it suddenly stopped.

Yet, sooner that I would have liked, I screamed Troy's name in ecstasy and threw my head back as the most intense orgasm I had ever felt rocked my body. Troy came soon after with a deep groan and hitching of breath, and then collapsed to the side so he wouldn't land on top of me.

We laid in silence for what felt like an eternity after that. I couldn't help but think back upon everything that had happened to get me to this point in my life. Meeting Troy in the club, and everything that had ensued afterwards. It seemed like something that would only happen in a soap opera on television, but no. I was living it. It was real.

Sighing, I glanced to my right to see that Troy had already fallen asleep. I smiled and brushed some of his sweaty hair out of his face so I could see him clearly, amazed that I had fallen in love with someone like him. He was so handsome. So carefree and sure of himself. And I was so…not any of that. I could only hope that he could teach me how to become more free-spirited as time went on. Maybe then I would finally be able to come to terms with everything that had happened to me in the hectic past two months of my life.

I smiled softly and curled up to Troy's side with an arm around his waist. He mumbled quietly in his sleep, but then turned so he could hold me. And suddenly I had the answer to my question from so long ago. How did it feel to be held in Troy's arms? It felt good, better than I could have ever imagined.

Yet I couldn't hold back the tears that started to flow. They weren't tears of sadness, but they weren't exactly tears of happiness either. They were mostly just tears of relief. Relief that it was over and that things would maybe calm down a little bit.

Maybe it _was_ cliché that it had all started on the crowded dance floor of a night club, but now that things were finally starting to make sense, I wouldn't have it any other way.

_**Hey guys this is just a random four-shot that I thought of. I hope you like the new and edited version. I think it will make it easier for you to read and follow. I was really bored so I wrote it. I am sorry for not updating Arranged Marriage and Rush, it's just that I have school examinations going on, it's mock GCSEs and this time next year I will be doing my proper GCSEs which is a really important thing in my school years… so I really do have a reason for not updating, but because I feel really bad I will give you a hint of what's to come and when it will be updated.**_

_**Arranged Marriage – UPDATE 22**__**nd**__** June – Troy walks into one of Gabriella's and Miley's conversations… will the truth be revealed? – wait till June**_

_**Rush – UPDATE 26**__**th**__** May – The school reveal that they are aware of the gang's secret.**_

_**I know you are all wondering why I will post Rush before Arranged Marriage when I started A.M. first, but Rush is a really short story and there are only five chapters to go and I really want to get it done and over with. Arranged Marriage only has four chapters left, but I really want to spend time getting it perfect and finishing it off properly. **_

_**I also have a new story coming soon, it's -untitled- at the moment. But the plot it that: **_

_**Gabriella is accused of cheating on Troy. **_

_**Her friends turn their back on her and stay with Troy. **_

_**Troy breaks up with her. **_

_**Her mother kicks her out of the house. **_

_**She disappears for 5 years, and then she's back with a lot of surprises. **_

_**I'm trying not too give too much away here, but this story will not be posted until 12**__**th**__** July, when I've completely finished posting Rush and Arranged Marriage. So you have something to look forward to.**_

_**Anyway, I'm rambling too much now, so I'll finish my incredibly long A/N… please review for this one-shot. It will mean a lot to me. **_

_**With love, **_

_**Kitty x**_


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